Enough
by clair beaubien
Summary: Moments that Bobby has had with Sam. Was originally part of "Bobby and Sam" but since that morphed into its own universe, I decided to give these chapters their own home. Bobby's POV.
1. Chapter 1

I met up with Winchesters by coincidence in North Platte. They were doing an easy salt and burn on their way from a shapeshifter in Denver to a poltergeist in Cleveland. I invited myself along, and my shovel too, to make the job and the night go by faster for them.

Sam was thirteen and had been going on jobs for about a year. He didn't seem to be taking to hunting the way Dean and John did. John always got the job done with a kind of grim, determined resignation to, and acceptance of, self-imposed duty. Dean was always excited to go on a job, no matter what it was. He'd swagger into a salt and burn just the same as he'd swagger into a bar or a brawl or the company of a pretty girl.

But Sam – this was the first job I'd seen him on, involved or not. He didn't look happy, he didn't look sad. He had him some resignation, but not grim, not determined, just – resigned.

John and Dean and I hefted our shovels and Sam carried the salt and accelerant, and we made our way into the cemetery to put a vengeful spirit to rest.

"And we have a winner." Dean announced, flashing his flashlight across the headstone. "Cara Melanie Jamieson. Well, _Cara-Mel_," and he jabbed his shovel into the soil. "You've thrown your last baseball bat into your old teammates' heads."

"She was just a kid." Sam said, flashing his own flashlight across the headstone. "She was born just a week before I was."

"How long has she been dead?" I asked. I'm all for silencing vengeful spirits, but torching a fresh corpse can be a gut-chucking experience.

"Nine months." John said.

"Hmm. _Juicy."_

John caught my meaning and nodded toward the boys.

"We got this covered. Sam, you go back and wait at the car."

"I'm okay."

"Dad's right." Dean joined in. "We don't need you on this. Go back and study something."

Sam grumped in his throat and straightened his shoulders.

"_I said I'm okay." _He didn't like it, this salt and burn, but he wouldn't back down from it either. Guess he was determined as well as resigned, after all.

So, we got to work. It takes a lot of work digging up a grave, but having four backs and four sets of hands pitching in gets it done a lot quicker. It wasn't long – _as far as grave digging goes_ – it wasn't long before it was time to open the coffin.

"What can make a thirteen year old girl vengeful?" Sam asked, probably rhetorically, but the three rest of us answered as one,

"_Puberty."_

He looked a bit baffled, but didn't say anything else and John popped the lid.

Ewweee, she was _ripe._ And still pretty fleshy. Next to me Sam was swallowing fast and repeatedly, but that was his only reaction.

In a little while '_Cara-Mel'_ was ash, and we were filling the grave back in. A little while after that, we were back at the motel.

"Thanks for the help." John said. The boys were carrying their duffels into their room, I was just getting ready to open the door to mine. "See you for breakfast tomorrow?"

"Yep." I said. "Enjoy what's left of the night."

So, we went in our rooms and I unpacked the little I was going to need for the night. Before having a shower and tucking in, I went down to the alcove for some ice.

And that's where I found Sam Winchester chucking his guts into the shrubbery.

While he chucked, I bought him a 7-Up.

"First one's always the worst." I told him when he stood back up from the shrubs. I pulled the tab on the pop can and handed it to him.

"That wasn't my first body…thank you." He took the can from me and took a long swallow of it.

"She was your first _gristly _body. First one your own age. That's gonna be tough."

"Yeah. I guess."

"Ain't no guessing to be done." I gave him a look over. He seemed to be keeping the 7-Up where it belonged. "Your Daddy know you're feeling this poorly? Or Dean even?"

"No." He shook his head. "_No._ I don't want them thinking I can't do this."

"Kid, no thirteen year old should have to be able to do _this._"

He nodded and drank some more soda pop, and his hands were shaking.

"Uncle Bobby?" He asked, and his voice cracked high. "What's it like?"

"What's _what_ like?"

"Not doing _this_. What's it like to _not do this_?"

I didn't have an answer for him. It'd been so long since I hadn't done _this_, I didn't have a simple, easy answer for him. I sure didn't have the answer he maybe wanted to hear.

"It's hard in its own way."

He nodded. I was chickening out and he knew it.

"But I'll tell you, Sam. It's the life I wish you had."

He tried to give me a smile of gratitude. I could tell he tried, but it broke apart. The whole rest of his life was a black hole of misery and he'd been trying to think it wasn't, but I'd just confirmed for him that it was.

He sniffed and scrubbed his face and straightened his shoulders the second time that night, getting himself ready to head right back into the maw of that life that was already grinding his bones.

"Thanks for the soda pop." He said. He took a couple of steps and just as I was planning to walk him back to his room, he surprised me in a fast, strong hug.

"_Thank you."_

And then he was gone back to his room and his life and that life that none of us really wanted.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam knew.

As soon as they pulled up to where I was working out in the yard, fresh from their '_dragon quest'_, as soon as Sam got out of the car and couldn't even look at me, I knew that he knew what had happened and what he'd done while he didn't have a soul.

Dean _didn't _know that Sam knew. If he did, he would've given me a warning look, a knowing grimace, an exhausted sigh. But I didn't get any of that. Dean gave me a smile in greeting as he got out of the car, then he turned to Sam.

"I'm gonna catch Bobby up. Whyn't you go make sure the beer's cold?"

He was maybe giving Sam a fast out to not have to be near me, or he was maybe just being a bossy big brother, pushing Sam to the house to get some more rest. Either way, Sam answered,

"Uh, yeah. Sure."

And then got away from me just as fast as I'd been getting away from him lately.

"How's he doing?" I asked, when Sam was out of earshot.

"Good. Real good. Saved _my_ ass. But it wore him out. He's been quiet since we left Portland."

Nope, Dean did not know that Sam somehow realized or found out what we'd been keeping from him. He only thought Sam was tired, not downhearted.

But Dean found out. Late that afternoon, after we'd hashed out 'The Mother of All' and gotten nowhere but in deeper, when Sam was in the kitchen getting a start on our supper, Dean gave me a shake of his head and a jerk of his chin out to Sam. And I knew that he knew.

So later, much later that night, after pretty much drinking half of our suppers and feeling no better, after the boys – I _thought_ – had already gone to bed, I was closing up for the night, checking doors and windows, and I caught a shadow on the porch, on the top step, next to the railing.

Sam.

Guess he hadn't gone to bed.

I wondered if I should go out to him, and I was kind of hoping the answer was '_no'_. After he tried to exsanguinate me in my own house, I was still not feeling 100% being around him. And since he'd put himself out on my porch without cluing anybody in, I told myself he probably wanted to be by himself, so I figured I'd _leave _him to himself.

But – I knew that if the situation was reversed, if some part of me had tried to kill every part of Sam, I knew Sam wouldn't be holding it against me. It wouldn't even occur to him to hold it against me. Even if I did something that made him maybe a little or a lot wary to be around me, it wouldn't occur to him either to avoid me. He'd just suck it up and do anything that needed to be done, no matter how he felt about it. No matter what he really wanted. He'd been doing that since he was twelve.

And I wasn't going to let a twelve year old be braver than me.

I opened the door and went out onto the porch. Sam looked back at me.

"Bobby? Is everything okay?"

Because the only reason I'd come out to him could only be because there was a problem.

"Fresh air seemed like a good idea." I said and sat myself on the other side of that top step.

"Oh. Um – yeah. It's a – it's a nice night."

Then we were quiet for a bit. Sam wouldn't talk until he was ready to talk, and I couldn't talk until I knew what to say.

I'd given up a long time ago being usually happy that I didn't have kids. Because I _had _kids. _Two _kids. I'd never be John, and I wasn't trying to _be _John. Nobody _could_ be John. I was only trying to be me, and hoping that would be enough for these two boys who'd always had to be men, these two men who I needed to remember were sometimes still boys.

"You know, Sam -"

He flinched. In the pale shine of the yard light, I saw him flinch and move just a little closer to the railing post, just a little farther away from me. He was getting ready to hear all my grievances against him. But that's not what I had in mind at all.

" – it means something to me, knowing I'm like a father to you."

I wanted that to cheer him, but I didn't get even the smallest hint of a smile.

"Even if it means I tried to kill you?"

Well, that was a justified question and a damn hard one to answer.

"I'm not gonna lie to you, Sam. Having you come at me that way scared the hell out of me. And I don't think I'll be getting over that feeling anytime soon."

Sam nodded, _resigned_. He was still waiting for me to cut him off at the knees.

"Now, maybe I ain't fond of the way the message got delivered, but for an old guy who'd given up on the thought of family decades ago -" _Damn, how did so much dust get in my eyes so suddenly_? " – anyway, it means a lot to me. And – uh – I just -" And then the dust got in my throat, too and my talking took on a stammer. "I just hope you know – I feel that same way too."

Sam met my eyes and held my gaze. He wasn't sure I meant it, he wasn't sure I _wanted_ to mean it.

"Kid, I've done a lot of things that I'll regret for the rest of my life, things I did for a lot less reason than my own survival. The only thing we can do is own it and move on. But nothing you do, nothing I do, will ever change the way I feel about you."

"Thanks." he said, after a minute, when I guess I passed muster. "I don't deserve it, but _thanks."_

"You deserve it, Sam. I don't know how much it's worth, but you deserve it and more."

He looked away quick at that and I pretended that I didn't see him run the heel of his hand under his eyes. Good to know that my caring about him meant as much to him as him caring about me meant to me.

Okay, that was enough of a 'chick flick moment' as Dean might say. It was late, we were both tired. Maybe if we _weren't _so tired, we wouldn't be so chick-flicky.

"Come on, now." I said. I stood up. "It's late and Dean'll have my hat if I let you stay out here all night. We start fresh tomorrow."

It took a few beats of time, but Sam nodded and stood up. Now, he was tall and grown up, he'd been to hell and back, he was a man, but looking at him right then I saw a boy dragged into a life he didn't want, making do with what small comforts and happiness he could find. And those were pretty damn few and far between.

"I'll see you in the morning." He said, moving to move past me and into the house.

"Do one thing for me, first, will you?"

"_Anything."_

"_Just stand there a minute."_

He stood there puzzled, but he stood there because I asked him to, and I took him into a hug. Sam's arms went around me fast and desperate, and he held on like letting go would be death. I'd never be John, I'd never be these boys' _Dad, _but I'd always be _me_, and damn if that just didn't seem to be enough.

The End.


End file.
